The OpenCaching NA Diversifed Cacher Contest

Coming in August! Lots of great prizes!

To celebrate our 4th anniversary (Aug. 18) and the month of International Geocaching Day (Aug. 23), we will be running a contest for the entire month of August, which encourages people to use alternative Geocaching websites (Us and the OpenCaching Network, Terracaching.com, GPSgames.org, Geocaching Australia and Navicache.com), as well as the smartphone based GPS games Munzee, Sighter and Monster Cache. This contest is inspired by two similar “non-official” contests run in the past by one of our admins, NativTXN, as well as a local “alternative to the frog” contest run by Termite Hunter during May and June 2014 at the Greater Charlotte Geocaching Club website. Prizes include a brand new in the box GPS unit from Terracaching.com, multiple premium memberships and multiple “virtual packages” from Munzee.com, a Sighter T-Shirt, Cache me if you can Geocaching board game, Monster coins from Monster Cache, and much, much more! Need details? Have questions? Read on.

How does the contest work?

There are 60 “actions” in which players can participate to score points, including three bonus challenge actions. Players will need to participate in a minimum of 5 actions, and score 100 points to earn one entry into the drawing for all the great prizes. Players can earn an additional entry in the drawing for each additional 100 points they earn. The more you play, the more entries you get. Can you score 1,000 points? Then you will get 10 entries into the drawing for prizes. These actions, their categories and points they are worth are shown in the embedded spreadsheet below, or you can view, download or print the full sized version here on the web. Note this is not the entry form, it is just a list of the actions. Print it out for reference, and start making your plans! The official entry forms will be released on Monday evening, July 28th.

How do you enter?

First of all, you must be a resident of the USA, Canada, or Mexico. We are OpenCaching North America, after all. As mentioned above, we plan to release the official entry forms (and official rules) on Monday evening, July 28th, 2014. Watch this blog, our social media outlets, the main page of our website, and our forums, for a link to them. This entry form will be a Google Form on the internet. When the player enters the waypoint names for all their qualifying hides and/or finds in the appropriate actions fields (separated by comma’s, please), it will update the master spreadsheet at OCNA headquarters. The entry form can be printed out, but players cannot save their own copy. We encourage players to print it out, and pencil in their results as they go along. We will even accept scanned copies of the entry form with legible hand written entries via email!

What about the smartphone games?

For Munzee, Sighter and Monster Cache, simply self report the raw number of finds (or deploys or creations, as the case may be) into the entry form. It’s very easy for the OCNA Admins to verify the last 31 days of activity on Munzee.com via your profile. We have a “special arrangement” with both Sighter and Monster Cache to verify a players scores for the month of August.

There are no caches near me on these obscure websites!

Then hide some for points! 🙂 And, as far as finding, think Locationless. Many of these websites accept, and list Locationless Caches. GPSgames.org has several point bearing games with randomly generated waypoints available world wide.

What’s up with Geocaching Australia, and other Opencaching Network sites, if it’s only open to residents of North America?

Geocaching Australia has almost 400 Locationless Caches available. And who knows, some of our players may be vacationing there in August! The same goes with the mostly European OpenCaching Network; and there are some, but not a lot of Locationless Caches available there too. A Locationless Cache listed on OpenCaching.de, with listed coordinates in the USA has been featured on this blog, for example.

Deadline for entries, and the prize drawing.

The deadline for entries will be Sunday, September 7th at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time. We anticipate the entries will be verified within one week, (keeping in mind the 3 OCNA Admins are volunteers, and have full time jobs and families), and the drawing for prizes should occur on Sunday, September 14th. We will use the website random.org for the drawing, as we have for other contests on this blog.

What are the rules?

As previously mentioned, you must be a permanent resident of The USA, Canada, or Mexico. Cross-listed caches (hidden or found) can only be used on one listing site. Players must participate in a minimum of 5 “actions” to be eligible for prizes. Players earn one entry into the drawing for prizes for scoring 100 points. Players earn one additional entry into the drawing for prizes for each additional 100 points.

What are the prizes, anyways?

We have some great prizes lined up! Including:

A brand new Magellan Explorist GC GPS unit from Terracaching.com (who is our featured sponsor)

(3) Premium Memberships from Munzee.com

(3) “Virtual Packages” from Munzee.com

A Cache Me If You Can Geocaching board game

A $30 gift certificate to the OCNA Swag Store powered by Spreadshirt.com

(3) 100 Devil Caches books from Navicache.com

A Sighter Hero T-Shirt from Sighter.com

A $5 Munzee.com gift certificate (not donated by Munzee.com)

Several OCNA Pathtags

500 Monster coins from MonsterCache.com

250 Monster coins from MonsterCache.com

Geocaching containers from GXProxy.com

Discount Coupons from CacheAdvance.com

And much, much more!!

Yes, there will be even more! Some of the Sponsors we have gone out to haven’t got back to us yet. With the drawing not being held until the middle of September, we could possibly add more prizes up until the end of August! Check out the main page of our website at www.opencaching.us for a link to the “sponsors page” in the future.

Disclaimer: “Actions” and “Rules” as outlined in this blog post subject to change before their official release on Monday, July 28th 2014, although we don’t anticipate any major changes.